The Clone's Mother (25 page)

Chapter 39

Sheila and I worked together on my next shift. And we had lunch break at the same time again. There were more nurses on than the night we’d been alone together, but once break rolled around, Sheila motioned for me to come sit with her at her table.

I looked behind me to see who she was gesturing to, thinking it had to be one of her Black Lung friends. But no one was there. I pointed to myself, probably looking like the idiot she thought I was, and she rolled her eyes while jerking her head in an emphatic nod.

With tray in hand, I meandered among the empty tables to make my way to her private area.

“I need to talk to you,” she said. “Sit.”

So I sat.

She started without preamble. “So you’re pregnant.”

The hinge to my jaw let loose. “How’d you know that?”

“I can tell.”

I looked down at my middle. The soft bulge that had always embarrassed me looked exactly like it always had.

“I can,” she said.

No way. She couldn’t be clairvoyant. And I’d bet my grilled ham and cheese she wasn’t that skilled as a nurse. “Nuh-uh,” I said with more conviction than I felt. Maybe she was a little psychic. It would go well with the psycho.

“Okay. People talk.”

Phew. (I’d hate to think she’d ever read my mind.)

“What people? Nobody knows.”

“Sure they do. Pam in Blood Bank told me.”

Pam was one of Sheila’s Black Lung friends.

“How on earth did Pam know?”

“Her boyfriend from Central Supply.”

“And his source?”

“You think I’m going to check everyone’s references before I let them tell me something? What’s it matter?”

“It does matter. I haven’t told anybody,” I said.

“Somebody has. Does Mackenzie know? Or is he not the father?”

No, he’s the uncle
.

“Of course he knows.” I got around that question like an expert smooth-talker.

“
You
can worry about who told your little secret. I won’t spread it around. I have my own problems. That’s what I need you for.”

“What?” I said, not certain I really wanted to hear.

“Remember that day you mixed up scrub jackets with me?” Right.
I
mixed up the jackets.

“You had a list of drugs and doses in your pocket. I need to know those drugs. Do you still have the list?” she said.

Sirens went off in my brain. My eyes popped before I could hide my reaction. For starters, just hearing about that list and being reminded it’d been in my pocket gave me sudden hope it might be in my junk basket at home.

Secondly, the sirens blared for the fact the Sheila was looking for the list too. This had to have something to do with Carl. The last thing I wanted was to let on I knew what she was talking about and it was probably at my house. But I wasn’t sure if I’d covered my reaction well enough.

I feigned dumb. “Why would you need something like that?” I didn’t want her to think I understood as much as I did.

She shocked me with her forthcoming answer.

“I’m going to have Carl’s baby, but we need those drugs.”

I stopped blinking.

She went on.

“His kids died. He wants to clone them. That Trent baby was his, and the first success. Now that he knows how it happened, we’re ready to do it with me.”

My eyes had dried into prunes. I tried blinking some life back into them.

“You know about all that, and you still want to let him do that to you?”

“It’s been our plan all along. We’ve been waiting for a breakthrough. We want to have his baby.”

Well, I don’t!
My thoughts surprised me. I was so certain I was ready to face having this baby. The ambivalence rushing through me was astounding, and confusing.

I couldn’t believe she would intentionally put herself in that position.

“What about the Trent baby? How many others might there be? How many is he willing to make and scatter around the country just so he gets one? And he’s counting on data—if you can even call it data—that certainly wasn’t established very scientifically. He’s got no idea what will really happen!” This was too unbelievable. I couldn’t keep my growing anger from making me push her, provoke her. “What about that, Sheila?”

Her eyes tightened and constricted.

Yup, I’d provoked her.

“Listen, Kate,” she said, snapping out the
Kate
as though breaking a brittle stick over her knee. “Though it’s none of your business, Carl just wants to give his kids a chance to live. He doesn’t have to possess them to do that.”

“They won’t be the same. They’ll have different souls. Or maybe
no
souls. Ever thought of that? This should not be messed with.”

Oops. I’d pushed her too far. The creative profanities began leaking out of her again.

I took a deep breath, trying to relax. I didn’t want to be scorched to smoldering bones again, but I had to do what I thought was right.

“I won’t help you, Sheila, even if I could. And I can’t. Why in the world would I keep old scraps of paper around like that anyway? It’s absurd.”

“Couldn’t hurt to ask.” All her tension dissolved with a shrug and she bit into her burrito.

How could she do that? My knees were knocking and wouldn’t stop for hours.

I hoped she’d dismissed it so easily because she’d bought it, not because she didn’t believe me. “I hope you’ll think long and hard before you do this,” I said in spite of my nerves. “You have no idea if those drugs would work for you, and anything can go wrong.”

“It’s my body. I can do what I like.” Then she added, “I expect you to keep this to yourself.”

Really now?

“I don’t need trouble,” she said. “I’m going to do what I’m going to do. You’ll not talk?”

“Who would I tell?”

“That’s all. You can go eat now.”

She’d dismissed me. It felt terrible, so I pretended I didn’t notice. Now that we were on new terms, I wanted to exercise my rights.

“How’s the hand?” I said.

She held it up for me to see. I couldn’t tell if she was showing me how it was or if she was flipping me off again.

“I see you got your nails back on and painted.” Didn’t know what else to say, staring that wicked-looking weapon in the face.

She ignored me and kept eating her burrito with her other hand.

“I’ll let you finish your lunch in peace.”

“If you find the list, let me know.”

I got the strong impression she wasn’t going to follow my advice.

“I don’t have it. That was a long time ago—lots of laundry ago, lots of garbage pick-ups. Don’t plan on getting it.”

“If you find it, let me know.”

Tenacious. I didn’t try to orient her to reality any longer. I just let it go.

“See you upstairs,” I said and left.

Before returning to the unit, I found a phone in an empty waiting room and called Mack. It was the middle of the night, but I had to let him know I might just have the list after all.

The phone rang four times and went to voicemail. Guess there weren’t enough rings to wake him up. So I left him a message, telling him Sheila had said something that made me think I had the list at home. I’d try him again in the daylight hours after I had a chance to get home and look myself.

I could barely get through the rest of my shift, I was so eager to get home and plow through my junk basket. If I found the list in there, I could start right away on the meds and do my part to help this baby develop normally.

It took about ten years to get through the next four hours. Once home, I flew in my door and pounced on my basket like a hungry cat on a mouse.

Under layers of old mail, match books, a bazillion alcohol swabs, gauze pads, band-aids, rubber bands, and a couple of needle packets, I found a folded sheet of paper. It looked familiar, and in my mind an image flashed of Nikki handing me the paper, me folding it up, and sticking it in my pocket.

Carefully, I opened it. There, in Nikki’s small tight handwriting, were all the meds and the doses she had used throughout her entire pregnancy.

I whooped out loud, I was so excited. “Hey, Ollie, guess what. I found it.”

Ollie didn’t respond.

“Hey, Ollie. Come here. Come see what I found.”

Still no Ollie.

I looked up from the list and looked around.

My apartment was a mess. I mean, more than usual. All the stuff from the counters and tabletop was strewn across the room, magazines and books were flung on the floor, drawers were dumped in piles and left empty on top of the heaps. Curious George was on the floor, broken into three pieces.

And Ollie was nowhere to be seen.

In a shaky voice, I called out to him. “Ollie, kitty-kitty, come here baby. Where are you?”

Silence.

I walked into the kitchen, stepping carefully over the mounds of rubble. The glass of the back window was broken out. The one I’d nailed shut.

Someone had been very mean. And Ollie had been home when that mean someone had shown up. Then the voice came back to me. The one that said I’d be sorry if I didn’t leave it alone. Had something happened to my kitty? Had I pushed too far and now the sorry part was about to begin?

I streaked through the apartment, throwing debris around, yelling for Ollie to please come out, to show me himself, it was safe now.

I ran to my bedroom, crying out his name. The feeling of impending doom crushed my chest. Every nerve from the ends of my hair to the tips of my toenails was buzzing. My stomach monkeys were ripping their way out of my insides. What had happened to my Ollie?

Then I saw him. From beneath the flipped nightstand, I saw a tuft of gray fur. The flowery tablecloth, which had been over the stand, covered the rest of his body.

My legs gave out and I dropped down. I crawled over to him, my heart so tight, it couldn’t beat. My poor little kitty. What had that wicked intruder done to him? Was his end quick and painless, or had he suffered? All alone, no one to comfort him.

I lifted the calico fabric with a shaky hand, almost too afraid to look.

A mountain-lion shriek screamed from under the stand and a claw slashed across my hand.

“Ollie,” I cried. “Oh, my Ollie!” I ignored his protest and the scratch, and I clutched him to my breast. My kitty was okay. Furious and frightened, but not hurt.

I couldn’t dial the phone fast enough.

“Mackenzie.”

“Mack,” I said breathlessly when he answered.

“What is it now?” His voice was short and impatient.

Suddenly, I couldn’t tell him about my apartment. I didn’t need him thinking I was a bother. He sounded miffed.

“Bad day?”

He let out a long breath. “Kate, I’m sorry. What’s up?”

I swallowed my need to get any sympathy from him. Instead, I focused on something else. “I found them. The meds. I have the list.”

“Where was it?”

“In my junk basket.”

“Hang on, let me grab a pen.”

He had me read him the meds, then reread it. Then he read it back to me.

“I’ll look these over and see if I can figure out anything. I can come over later, is that okay?”

Part of me didn’t want him to. The part that wanted to pout. But the loudmouth part that couldn’t resist him jumped right in.

“Yes, that’d be good. You can bring the meds I need.”

I still didn’t want to tell him about the break-in. His attitude ticked me off a little. I mean, he’s the one with the crazed sister.
I
was the one with the reason to be miffed. “Come after work. I don’t work till eleven. Maybe I’ll still be able to sleep a little.”
Or clean up the mess in my apartment.

“I’ll take you out to dinner.”

“Okay.” My sarcastic side wanted to ask if Jackie would be joining us, but my polite side caught myself in time and didn’t let it happen.

“See you then.” Good girl. Much nicer.

Chapter 40

Mack arrived at my door before six. The apartment was back to its usual state by then. A piece of plywood covered the broken window and my George Clooney poster hid the plywood.

“I thought we might order in, instead of go out with the crowds.”

“Good idea,” I said. I knew it would be good to reconnect. I hugged him and let him kiss me on the lips this time.

Ollie apparently didn’t like seeing me get kissy face so he jumped down from his perch on the windowsill and wrapped his body around my ankles, miaowing and pushing, until I couldn’t ignore him.

“You’ve got your Jackie, I’ve got my Ollie.”

I picked up my cat and laughed. Mack tried to laugh along, but it sounded more like he choked.

“Did you bring the meds?”

“The meds?” He asked it like he had no idea what I was talking about.

“I thought you’d bring the meds. Shouldn’t I start right away? I’m already behind.”

“I need to look over them more. Some are contraindicated in pregnancy. It could be unwise.”

I frowned.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll come up with something soon.”

Mack reached out to pet Ollie, but Ollie spit at his hand and flared his chocolate-colored tail to four times its normal size. I could barely hold him. He jumped out of my arms and disappeared into the bedroom.

“He must be a little skittish still.”

“Still?” Mack looked puzzled.

For some reason, I wasn’t ready to tell him. “He had a run-in with a visitor.” To avoid further discussion, I pulled the yellow pages from my desk, plunked the mammoth book on the table, and started leafing through the restaurants.

“Where do you want to get food?” I asked. “How about Big Bob’s?”

He didn’t answer. I looked up from the phone book and found him staring out the window.

“What do you see?” I asked after he stood there a while fixated on some object below.

“Those Dumpsters down there below the power lines.”

“Dumpsters. I don’t want to go near any.”

“I got some difficult news today.”

“About?” I didn’t know if he knew what I knew. Could he already know that Carl was planning on making babies in Sheila? But if he was talking about Dumpsters, he probably wasn’t talking about what I knew.

“Carl.”

Then again, maybe he did know.

“Carl?” It’s always good to answer a question with another question if you aren’t sure what your answer should be.

“So you heard,” he said.

“So I heard?”

“If you haven’t, you’re going to, so I might as well tell you. Don’t jump to conclusions. The Dumpster where they found Charlotte was two blocks from Carl’s place.”

There went my eyes again. They popped and stopped blinking.

“You’re kidding.”

He stepped away from the dormer and window.

“Why would he kill her? His own kid, in a way,” I said.

“Whoa there a minute. You’re jumping. I didn’t say he killed her, or that he had anything to do with it. I just know that’s where they found her body. Maybe it was a coincidence. Something might have gone wrong and the kidnappers never intended for the baby to die. I think someone is trying to set-up Carl.”

“Nobody knows anything about this. Who’d want to frame him? Why? It makes no sense.”

“You know. I know. Maybe others do.”

“This gives me goose bumps. If Carl is involved, that means he might have shot Anna too.” Mack probably wouldn’t believe it. He refused to believe Carl would do anything worse than what he’d done himself. Dabble a bit in cloning.

“That’s a big jump from me just telling you where the body was found, and now you’re saying Carl shot Anna.”

(See what I mean? Denial, all the way around.) He needed me to help him accept the truth.

“There is something else I learned today. I think you’ll find it interesting,” I said.

“What’s that?” He sank into the couch while loosening his zebra tie. I sat down next to him.

I told him all about Sheila and what she’d told me, what she asked of me. “They want to try it again. Can you believe it?”

“What does that tell you? If he is still trying so hard to clone his kids, do you really think he could be behind killing the only known success?”

“Maybe he just doesn’t want someone else to have his kid. He wants the only copy.”

He gave me a look that said I was crazy.

“You’re right. That doesn’t make sense. But none of this does. I think there is a missing part.”

Mack laughed. “Of course there is a missing part. That’s how crime works. Things don’t get all laid out and explained in real life. It’s just television where the bad guy explains everything right before being led away in cuffs. We’ll likely never know.”

“That’s sad.”

“That’s reality. Get used to the idea. Now, how about we order some food before we starve?”

While we waited for Big Bob’s Barbecue to deliver our ribs, we discussed how to handle the matter of the list of meds Sheila wanted so badly.

Mack said, “You did the right thing. As long as they don’t have the information, they won’t go ahead. Carl is too conservative. I know you don’t think that. But he can’t even make a good guess by what I told him. We just assumed we’d have the chart to look at sooner or later, so we never discussed the details.”

“Sheila saw the list, though. She saw it well enough to remember it and remind me that I still had it.”

“Guess we’ll just have to assume she doesn’t know. Or else she wouldn’t have needed to ask you about it.”

“I hope you’re right. I’m stuck in my condition, but I’d hate to think of her pursuing it intentionally. Especially with all the potential complications.”

Mack brushed a stray hair off my face and looked at me.

“Have you thought about what might happen?” he asked.

“Some. I’ve read some. But I’m not sure what all the complications can be.”

“I feel like I should tell you, make sure you understand, so you can truly make the right decision.”

“Like there
is
a right decision. I shouldn’t have ever gone back to Carl. I should have insisted on a woman doctor in the first place, like my gut told me. Now it’s too late to undo. I have to live with it.”

“I don’t want this to happen to you.”

“It already has.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“Or this baby’s either.”

“Things could get very bad.”

“Nothing is guaranteed in life.”

“It might be terribly deformed, if it—he—lives long enough to develop. He might have health problems. The cloned sheep Dolly had trouble—arthritis, unexplainable weight gain, a terminal lung disease. Lived in pain, died in pain. And it could be worse for a human clone. Heart disease, congenital anomalies. We have no idea what really could happen.”

“Why were you doing it then?”

“Now I wish I hadn’t. I mainly wanted to figure out how to grow tissue—especially nerve cell tissue—to help people like Jackie. Or burn victims. We could grow them a whole new skin.”

“Can Carl do this without you? Does he know enough?”

“I’m not sure. He did some of the embryology, and he watched me a lot. But without the drugs, he won’t try. Sheila is his best shot. He won’t waste the chance on such a low possibility of success.”

“Only on people like me would he risk God-only-knows-what.”

“I’m sorry. So sorry that anything I ever did put you in this position. I wish I could make it up to you.”

“I’m glad you’re going to help me through it. If it helps your penance at all, that means a lot to me.”

We began kissing, a nice, passionate joining which seemed to erase all our current disagreements.

And the door buzzer rang.

Mack made a frustrated groan, then walked over to the intercom.

“Yes?” he barked, raking his fingers through his hair.

“Big Bob’s delivery.”

He sighed. “Come on up.”

After the Big Bob’s guy left, we sat in the middle of the floor and devoured our spicy, dripping ribs and all the fixings. Our picnic came with slaw, savory beans, fresh hot rolls with honey-butter, and extra sauce for dipping everything.

“You’re hungry,” Mack said after I started in on a third helping of bread and beans.

“You’re not kidding. I had no idea.”

“You’re not nauseated anymore?”

“Now and then. Not bad. Not like before. It was so weird. Sometimes I couldn’t even look a dry cheerio in the face without needing to puke, then it’d just switch off and I could—and did—eat everything. Now I’m almost always fine.”

“Want me to order something else? Maybe from a bakery, or pastry shop?”

“Oh no, this is enough. I’m stuffed. In about an hour or so, we can have the ice cream in the freezer.”

“Maybe. I might not eat again for a week.”

“You hardly ate anything,” I said. “Maybe a quarter rack, a few beans. Didn’t you get any bread?”

“You ate it all,” he said. “Don’t worry. I ordered this for you. For you and the baby. It takes a lot of work to eat for two. I can see it’s more like eating for twelve or so.”

The pillow near my hand just picked right up and flew against his head. I couldn’t have stopped it if I’d tried.

“Twelve,” I gasped in feigned offence. “Like you’re some expert on what pregnant women should eat.”

After I finished licking up every last drop from the containers, Mack brought up getting married.

“Would you like to set a date?”

“Have you asked Jackie?” I meant it kind of as a joke, but it sounded sarcastic. But he didn’t even notice. He thought I was serious.

“I think she’ll be okay with it. We’ll look at apartments for her and the baby soon. When that’s taken care of, we can go ahead, I think.”

I realized I should take what I could get and not be too picky. With Jackie in the picture, that was going to become a way of life.

“Let’s keep it simple,” I said.

“Jackie can help. And she’ll realize the need not to take too long, with the baby on the way.”

“Wait a minute.” I was confused. “She knows? I thought we weren’t going to tell anyone yet.”

“I didn’t. Just Jackie. Don’t worry about her. She’s safe.”

“Are you sure you didn’t mention it to someone else?”

“Yeah,” he said with conviction. “Why?”

“Sheila knew I was pregnant. Came right out with it. Said she heard it through the grapevine.”

“That’s too bad. Now if you decide to terminate it, people will know.”

If he’d slapped me, I wouldn’t have been more surprised. “What do you mean? I’m not having an abortion.”

“I didn’t think you’d decided for sure. This is a very serious thing.”

“And I’m very serious. I’m going to have this baby.”

He raked his fingers through his hair, then rubbed his palm over his face. “But it may be a disaster. You may wish you’d terminated before—

“I will not do that!”

He put up his hands in surrender. “I just didn’t want to take anything for granted, that’s all. Don’t get upset.”

“I thought you understood.”

“I didn’t know you’d decided for sure.”

“Yes. For sure,” I snapped. I got up off the floor and planted it on a kitchen chair. My back was rigid, my mouth hard.

“Okay, then. I wasn’t saying that to upset you.” He tried to follow after me, but the don’t-touch-me look I shot him backed him away.

I sat there huffing, my arms locked in a tight knot in front of me. Mack looked baffled, and I couldn’t blame him. My emotional outburst was incongruent to the situation. I narrowed my eyes and stared at nothing on the other side of the room.

“You want to talk about something?” Mack said.

One emphatic head shake didn’t convince him.

“I think it might be helpful,” he said.

For ten minutes, he waited while I sat staring at the wall in silence trying to decide if I’d let my mind go there or not.

I hadn’t told anyone for a long time. And that had only been one person. Not a lot of practice.

Finally, I decided to try.

I stammered and stumbled, taking forever to get it out. Several false starts came and went. My breathing was ragged and quick, my pulse faster. He came to stand next to me. Not too intrusive, but he put a light arm around me. My body was a tree trunk. I didn’t move, even under his touch. I couldn’t.

Then it finally came out.

“I had an abortion. Against my will. When I was sixteen.”

That was the easy part. There was more. It took several minutes to catch my breath and force the words off my tongue.

“I was raped.”

He didn’t move. I’m not sure if he was even breathing.

Then I felt a warm tear splash onto my arm. It wasn’t mine.